Supervisor Ronen takes it upon herself to find sites for...

1of2Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing Director Jeff Kositsky, District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen and Department of Homelessness spokesperson Randy Quezada inspect the area near Cesar Chavez Street and Potrero Avenue — the Hairball — earlier this year. The area is a possible location for a new Navigation CenterPhoto: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle

2of2Pedestrians walk past the outside of the Navigation Center between 15th and 16th Streets on Mission Street in July. It is scheduled to close in March.Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle

The Mission District’s two Navigation Centers are scheduled to close in March, but complaints are still pouring into Supervisor Hillary Ronen’s office from constituents who are tired of stepping around tents on the sidewalk and seeing people in obvious despair.

So Ronen is bypassing the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, after frequently criticizing its director, Jeff Kositsky, for taking too long to clean up the camps in her district. Instead, she’s teamed up with Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru to find buildings to replace the current centers, and Mayor Ed Lee isn’t standing in their way.

The city is in talks to lease or purchase those buildings, Ronen said Thursday. One is in an industrial part of the Mission, and the other is near the spaghetti tangle of freeway arteries that interlock over Cesar Chavez Street, Potrero Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard, which residents have nicknamed the “Hairball.”

Those properties are among seven that officials are eyeing throughout the city, according to the mayor’s office. Kositsky’s department will operate them whether or not he’s involved in the real estate negotiations.

There is enough money in San Francisco’s budget to fund one new Navigation Center, and Lee has said he will find the money for new ones if the city identifies places to put them.

But San Francisco has also relied heavily on private funding — including a $30 million donation from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and $100 million from the philanthropic nonprofit Tipping Point Community — to address its homeless crisis.

For the past few weeks, Ronen has courted potential donors from Facebook and other tech companies in the hope of forming a public-private partnership to finance the Hairball Navigation Center. The industrial Mission center would be financed with state money secured by Assemblyman Phil Ting, she said.

“I know this is not the traditional job of a legislator,” Ronen said. “But with this crisis of street homelessness, we’re completely losing the patience of a compassionate city.”

— Rachel Swan

Bad sports: An initiative asking San Francisco residents to officially condemn the relocation of the Golden State Warriors basketball team from Oakland has collected enough signatures to be placed on the city’s June ballot.

The measure, sponsored by a group called the Good Neighbor Coalition, also seeks to prevent San Francisco officials from trying to woo established professional sports franchises with deep-rooted fan bases to the city.

Allen Jones, a longtime San Francisco resident and Warriors fan, is leading the effort to denounce the team’s move. Jones said he sees the efforts to uproot the team and move it across the bay — complete with a brand-new arena — as an unfair attempt to further enrich San Francisco’s coffers at the expense of Oakland’s economy.

“Why is San Francisco taking from Oakland when we have so much already?” Jones said. “Our slogan is, ‘A world-class city helps its neighbors; it doesn’t help itself to its neighbors’ jewels.’”

— Dominic Fracassa

Open for business: San Francisco officials on Thursday commemorated the completion of the new Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The 46,000-square-foot facility, at 1 Newhall St. in the Bayview neighborhood, is expected to provide a vastly improved work environment for the medical examiner’s 35-person staff. The office investigates and certifies more than 1,200 deaths in San Francisco each year, in addition to performing poison and drug analysis for law enforcement.

The $65 million project was funded by the 2014 voter-approved Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response Bond. It broke ground in November 2015.

Staff members are expected to finish moving into the new building over the weekend and will begin processing cases there on Monday.

For decades, the medical examiner’s duties were carried out in the city’s crumbling Hall of Justice.